Geez Louise - it is tough to get a blog started! But that's alright - like everything else, I survived. I'll probably have an amends to make to my employer though since I've spent so much time messing with this today!
I'm not sure what inspired me to start a blog - I think I've just spent so much time looking at other people's stuff about program, all over the web, and I felt like maybe I could put a little bit out there as I accumulate all of this stuff. Service maybe? (Can I call it service when doing it on my employer's time??? Probably not.) Not service. Just because. I have no good reason whatsoever.
I'm in a twelve-step program. I chose not to specify which one because I have been in long enough to know that my substance of choice is merely a symptom of a much larger problem, and ultimately, I really don't think it matters what substance a person uses if that person is trying to fill a God-sized hole with it - nothing will work.
Ah, the G-word. Can I just say that for the longest time I had a really difficult time accepting "God's" place in a twelve-step program. I think that I can very safely call myself an agnostic, since I simply do not know the status of God (exists? imaginary? whatever). I don't necessarily fall on the side of an atheist, but if I know nothing else for sure, it is simply that whatever or wherever I am now, it is sure to change in a matter of days, weeks, months or years.
When I first got into program, God was ... well, God. God was what I had grown up learning about when my parents dragged me to church. At some point (probably around age 16), church and I had a falling out. I could probably count on two hands the number of times I've been inside a church since. (I might need my toes too, if I have to count weddings and funerals.) So I just sort of ignored God, which can be difficult for anyone who's ever been to an 12-step meeting!
But at some point God became Good-Orderly-Direction. Now that worked for me. For a little while, anyway. Then came God as "Goodness" (like that inherent goodness in people that makes them drive 48 hours straight to New York City just to volunteer in the rescue efforts after September11th, or that makes people load up a U-Haul full of bottled water and drive it down to New Orleans after Katrina hit). That worked for awhile too.
The problem with both of these concepts was that I had never developed a method for "communicating" with them the way the steps required me to. Turn my will and my life over to the care of whom? Admitted the exact natures of my wrongs to whom? Became entirely ready to have my character defects removed by whom? Humbly asked to have my shortcomings removed by whom? Continued through prayer (to whom?) and meditation to improve my conscious contact with whom? Praying only for knowledge of whose will for me? It was very problematic.
At some point I settled on the principles of the program becoming my higher power. While the principles of the program stem the same problems that Good-Orderly-Direction and God=Good do, it nonetheless brought a level of peace to me that I had not known before. I guess that the element of studying the program and practicing its principles in order to live a recovered life just rang true to my life and who I am.
And, shock of all shock!!! I'm not the only one who uses the program as a higher power! In fact, the literature I've been reading since my first day in suggests it as an option! I heard a speaker say once that a revelation is something that I am just now discovering that someone else has been trying to tell me for 6 months or more. My development of a higher power was definitely a revelation!!! And thankfully, because I'm not the first to develop this idea, I was able to find all sorts of things on the web that helped me interpret the steps (and traditions - I find them to be an essential part of the principles of the program that encompass my higher power) in a way that works for me (eliminating all of the "to whom" questions that plagued me before). So as I learn to incorporate the steps and traditions in my everyday life, I am growing spiritually and I am making spiritual progress (most definitely NOT perfection).
I guess that's all I have at the moment - far more than I realized I had, and probably only a chip off the iceberg of stuff I hope to learn in this program. To anyone who's new in recovery - just know that it is a long, wonderful progress - you will probably not get anywhere over night, but you just might be surprised how far you can travel piecing together one overnight after another overnight after another overnight. To anyone who's been in recover for a long time - have patience with me - I know I've got a long, long way to go, and I welcome any advice you might have to offer.
That's all for now. Hopefully I'll come back to update this here blog more than once every six months. I know - such a lofty goal!
